I have been looking for a choir since I moved here and nice P sent an email about a womens singing group in Hove. I went last Thursday and it was  totally unlike what I had expected which was a church hall with thirty or so assorted women.  In fact it was in one of those high white Regency flats on the sea front and I went up in a cranky antiquated iron lift to an extraordinary room full of religious pictures and buddhas and instuments and there were only four of us.  I liked it though, as we sang interesting harmonies and rhythms, African songs, a Leonard Cohen song, I think I will go again.   I am still looking for a regular writing and reading group.
I also went to help at the Brighton Meeting House on Saturday, several dossers, rogues, in and out of the garden and they have rough sleepers coming at night, and all the usual lot inside :AA, Al Anon, spirititual healers, I felt so at home with it all.      
It is Bank Holiday weekend and I always feel as if everybody else is doing something exciting.  I have just been lolling about all afternoon reading the Observer.   Some of my family are at a festival in the Midlands and they will come home tomorrow all covered in mud. 

There has been an overwhelming response to my last dismal blog, with lots of cheery messages, so that I feel thoroughly ashamed of myself.   One of the snags of living in Ditchling is that there are hardly any buses and I had been looking forward to exciting outings to places like Eastbourne or Tunbridge Wells, sitting dreamily on a bus with my packet of sandwiches and my free bus pass, but this is not to be.  I try to go for a cycle ride most days but the hills are ferocious, and I can hardly even walk up let alone cycle to the top.
I have been trying to plan my eightieth birthday party which is a worry.  I do love parties and like planning them but there is always that fear that there will not be enough food or drink,or that  no one will come, or that they won`t enjoy themselves and when the invitation arrives they will say Oh my God, do we have to go? Grand daughter M is doing the invitations for me so the die is cast, have to go through with it now. 

ditchling dumps

Well it was bound to happen.  I keep thinking why did I ever leave lovely Winchester and all my mates?  I had a visit from dear E and S on Friday, so perhaps that was the start, as it was so good to see them and talk and talk.   Also the my Brighton family are still away on the Island.    I have spent a lot of time on my own and I am just Not Used To It.  I wish I still  had a job, but who wants to employ an eighty year old with dodgy feet and ankles?   And that`s another worry.   Do I want to have a big eightieth birthday party?  Can`t make up my mind.  One minute I want to push the boat out and hire the Barn on the Village Green and have a band, or the lovely Art gallery opposite,or a more sober celebtration in the Quaker Meeting House, but the thought of making a dozen or so quiches and puddings is daunting.
This morning I went to the house of one of the artists whom I sat for a few weeks ago and played my cello  in a little baroque group. I did enjoy it and they have asked me to go again, but I felt I made a horrible scratchy noise maybe due to my dodgy arthritic thumbs.  I am resolved to practise more.
And I think I will try to go on some interesting free bus trips to cheer myself up.